The singer who took us to Margaritaville
Jimmy Buffett 1946–2023
Jimmy Buffett was a struggling Nashville singer-songwriter with a failed marriage when he landed in Key West in 1971. Smitten by its sunbaked, bohemian vibe and its cast of sailors, writers, drug runners, and hippies, Buffett “found a lifestyle,” he later said. He would build a hugely successful career on that lifestyle, with a catalog of breezy songs evoking a flip-flop–clad existence where the sand was white, work was a distant memory, and a fruity cocktail was always at hand. A perennial concert draw whose Hawaiian-shirted, grass-skirted fans were dubbed “Parrotheads,” Buffett wrote enduring classics including “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” and especially “Margaritaville,” the Calypso-tinged tale of a dissolute beach bum searching for his “lost shaker of salt.” His music was “pure escapism,” Buffett said, scratching the universal itch to “get away from whatever you do to make a living or other parts of life that stress you out.”
Buffett grew up in Mobile, Ala., where his parents worked office jobs at a shipyard, said Rolling Stone. A grandfather was a sea captain “who filled Buffett’s imagination” with tales of his travels. At the University of Southern Mississippi, Buffett “learned guitar with the hope of impressing girls” and began playing local clubs and eventually bars on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. He moved to Nashville and released a 1970 debut, Down to Earth, that sold under 400 copies. After a second dud, his third album, “laced with the low-key Key West vibe” inspired by his new home, picked up steam, said Billboard. He breached the top 40 with “Come Monday” in 1974; three years later came his “breakthrough,” Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, propelled by “Margaritaville.”
Despite his “beach-bum image,” Buffett “evolved into a savvy businessman,” said The Washington Post. He spun the Margaritaville brand into restaurants, resorts, casinos, furniture, flip-flops, beer, and frozen-drink machines, acquiring an estimated $1 billion fortune and “boats, planes, and properties across the country.” Buffett wrote best-selling books, launched a Broadway show, and remained a top summer concert draw until he contracted a rare skin cancer. “You know Death will get you in the end,” he wrote in a 1998 memoir, A Pirate Looks at Fifty, “but if you are smart and have a sense of humor, you can thumb your nose at it for a while.”